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This is a standard question in EM where you have 2 pairs of charge. When you connect opposite charges with the wires, then we get essentially 2 conductors with net 0 charge. Now thanks to the uniqueness theorem we know that the charge everywhere in the setup becomes 0 since one solution to the setup is simply for charge to be 0 throughout each conductor.

I find this very unintuitive because physically speaking, how can the existence of the wires cause this neutralisation?

Imagine a scenario where the pairs of charge were a huge distance away from eachother, how then can the wire possibly defeat the attraction between the negative and positive charges to bring the setup to 0 charge everywhere?

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  • $\begingroup$ I don't understand your question, in most cases positive charge of something says there are not enough electrons, and negativ charge says there are too many. if you connect these too equal "charges, the electrons will go to the end, where the are missing. So where do you suppose a surplus of charges should be? $\endgroup$
    – trula
    Commented Sep 10, 2023 at 21:14

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I find this very unintuitive because physically speaking, how can the existence of the wires cause this neutralisation?

This is due to electrostatic induction on the conductor. Even before the wire touches the charge, as it simply is placed near the charge, the electrostatic field induces an opposite charge on the nearby end of the conductor. When they touch the induced charge neutralizes the external charge. As they approach, the dipole moment between the external charge and the induced charge becomes smaller and approaches zero as the wire comes close to the charge.

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    $\begingroup$ thank you so much this makes complete sense and answers the question really well $\endgroup$
    – Talha Ashraf
    Commented Sep 12, 2023 at 10:53
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It might help to realize that an electron at the right end of the top left (-) will actually be pushed in the direction of the wire because it's acted upon by the top left (+) and the top right (-), which are of equal magnitude but the (-) is closer, so the repulsion from the (-) will be stronger than the attraction to the (+). This explains how the neutralization process can start. Once it starts, it effectively reduces the given configuration into one with smaller charges, so by the same logic, the neutralization process should continue, until it has run to completion.

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